1 Peter 2:19-25
Notes
Transcript
justice mercy love
justice mercy love
Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.
“He committed no sin,
and no deceit was found in his mouth.”
When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.
—> The Revised Common Lectionary - is where we get 90% of our preaching texts. Most of the time there is a logical progression where you can see what they were doing and why they picked a text. This week is one of those texts where you shake your head and say, “huh, why not that verse too?” In today’s reading it is supposed to be 1 peter 2:19-25 but that leaves out verse 18 which gives us an important piece of context for this passage. With that aside, let’s read our text today. Turn with me to 1 peter 2:18-25.
—> 1 Peter 2:18
Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh.
Who is Peter talking to?
—>The word translated servants comes from oiketai rather than the more common word for slaves, douloi, used by Paul when he counsels on similar matters (Eph. 6:5–9; Col. 3:22–25; 1 Tim. 6:1–2). Oiketai meant a “member of a household, domestic servants, including freemen as well as slaves.” Slaves of New Testament times included doctors, teachers, secretaries, musicians, domestics, and the like. The first Roman slaves were captives of war. With the multiplication of their numbers into the millions, it was the accepted social order for all the work to be done by these slaves.
Charles S. Ball, “First and Second Peter ,” in Hebrews-Revelation, vol. 6, The Wesleyan Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1966), 262.
—> This is important because there were somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 million slaves in the whole of the Roman Empire, and these servants and slaves made up a large percentage of the early church.
—> Why does this matter? Why are we spending so much time on a verse that isn’t even technically part of our text for today?
—> The early church would have been the first place where there was equality in the Roman World.
—> Slaves and masters could have and would have worshipped in the same congregations and communities.
—> It wouldn’t have been like we picture American slavery, instead of separating slaves and masters the church united them. The church was the place that brought ALL people together.
—> It was the place of original equality and true justice for all. Where all people were seen as people.
—> So if that was the case…why doesn’t Peter and other New Testament writers encourage the complete dismantling of slavery?
—> Context… There had already been numerous slave revolts throughout the Roman Empire. These revolts had been quickly, and brutally crushed. Had the early Christians sought to do this they would have been branded as a people bent on causing social chaos and revolutionary behavior and they would have targeted even more than they already were. That’s why Peter writes
—> 1 Peter 2:19-21
For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.
—> Instead, of changing the culture by force. The early Church sought to change the culture by showing the world what justice, love, and living for the true God look like.
—> This is hard for us to understand today, especially in American culture. When we see something wrong we want it stopped immediately, and most of the time that means by force, but let me ask you church, how well is that working out?
—> When we meet hate with hate, violence with violence, mean with mean, does that accomplish anything???
—> So instead Peter says, hey whenever you are punished unjustly or treated unfairly, God is proud of you. God sees you and loves you. God understands your suffering because Christ suffered too.
—> 1 Peter 2:22-25
“He committed no sin,
and no deceit was found in his mouth.”
When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.
—> God can say this because God through Christ Jesus lived it. My dad taught me when you lead people you should never ask them to do something you aren’t willing to first do yourself. That’s exactly what God did. Jesus Christ came down and suffered and died for us. He took beatings, mockings, and a death that we deserved so that we wouldn’t have to. What mercy…What strength to be willing to do all that knowing He did nothing to deserve it.
—> So here is the rub, are we willing to follow Jesus’ example and Paul’s teaching and humbly submit to God and put our feelings and pride aside so that through our humility others might come to know God by seeing Jesus in us and through our actions?
—> That’s the ask today are you wlling to take out your fork and willfully eat some humble pie? Or are you going to say, no, I’m going to get mine now?
—> The early church played the long game and after 300 years became the official Religion of the Roman Empire.
—> When we trust God and humbly submit to the teachings and example of Jesus amazing things can and will happen.